


Anoxia

by Messier_47



Series: langst [1]
Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt No Comfort, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Sad Lance (Voltron), langest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:50:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9652703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Messier_47/pseuds/Messier_47
Summary: Lance gets hurt.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i tried. forgive me. this boy makes me want to hurt him. with love.
> 
> you can tell me later how horrible a human being i am.

It all started on a mission. It wasn’t even a special war turning mission or something that became an event to remember in the minds of the other paladins It was just a simple approach, survey, and make plans from there. The planet didn’t even have any inhabitants. Just empty red rock, some cool sand mountains, and canyons Coran said could reach the center of the planet.

 

It all started when Lance started to hum.

 

“What-Lance are you humming?” asked Pidge over the comm. Lance justs hums louder now that he remembered he had an audience.

 

“Is that ‘Toxic’? Jeez Lance of course you pick that!” Hunk says and tries to hold in his snickers.

 

“Wait, what’s toxic?” Keith asked.

 

“With a taste of your lips I’m on a ride! You're toxic, I'm slipping under! With a taste of a poison paradise! I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that you’re toxic?!” Lance sang into the comms. Pidge and Hunk immediately groaned in annoyance having been through the torture of hearing Lance go weeks in the Garrison singing this very song.

 

“Shiro! Can’t we just cut off his comms for now?” begged Hunk.

 

“Lance, we gotta keep the comms clear. If you don’t stop impersonating Britney-”

 

“WITH A TASTE OF YOUR LIPS I'M ON A RIDE! YOU'RE TOXIC, I’M-” Lance’s comm was cut off by a definitive ‘click’.

 

“Oh thank the blessed Space Dad!” Hunk shouts over the comms.

 

“That wasn’t Space Dad. That was me,” Pidge admitted to her savagery with pride.

 

“Don’t call me that and let’s get back to work. If we finish up early Conan promised not to enter the kitchen tonight.”

 

“Think we’ll get him to stay out the kitchen for a month if we win a big battle?”

 

“Here’s hoping.”

 

Back with the Blue Paladin, Lance was still getting over that ‘click’.

 

“Guys? Guys can you hear me! I’ll stop singing just turn the comms on!” Nothing happened on the other side. Lance blew out a gush of air, relaxing in his seat to contemplate his fate. IT was rather peaceful actually with his connection with the other Paladins cut off. If he really focused he could sense the other Paladin’s mental states but he wasn’t trying to focus on them and being cut off from their chatter really makes the cockpit quiet.

 

Real quiet.

 

The Blue Lion growls deep within Lance’s head and he snaps to attention at the sound.

 

“What’s wrong, Blue? You sense something?” he asked the sentient machine and she starts talking. Or you know, sending mental images to his head because unlike Star Wars sentient machines still can’t speak.

 

All Lance gets is a mental picture of a giant mountain of sand and the vague sense of distrust going around the corner.

 

“We’ll be fine, girl. Allure said this planet is clear of all signs of life! No planets, no animals, no people, no Galra, and especially no bacteria. This place is a graveyard!” Or course that’s when the Universe decides to fuck with him.

 

“HOLY SHIIIIIII-” At least Allura was right. There was no organic life. There was, however, robots. Galra robots.

 

Beyond the mountain was what looked to be a factory and oh would you look at that, ground soldiers swarming the sand dunes and laser cannons warming up to take the Blue Lion down.

 

“Shiro! Guys! I might need some backup!” Lance called out in the comms. The cannons blasted out the first volley of lasers and Lance had to get real agile to dodge twenty independently ‘manned’ missiles with impeccable aim. Hey, they might be robots but they were war machines! Of course they knew how to shoot a gun!

 

“Turn on the goddamn comms!” Lance yelled uselessly on his end. And oh great, now the foot soldiers were aiming their BB bullet laser guns at him too!

 

“Fuck!” Lance cried out when he dodged one laser beam and was hit with another. Thankfully the blast didn’t cut into the hull but he didn’t want to test out the air bags on Blue just yet. With Lance at the helm, Blue twisted and moved in the air brilliantly but at least one laser beam always hit him in between turns.

 

“Blue! Let’s start up the ice blast!” Blue’s roar was like a war cry and Lance could feel energy focusing into a beam in the Blue Lions mouth and-

 

A strip of the valley was frozen solid, freezing the robots as they stood and the laser cannons useless. But one strip of ice was nothing against the rest of the army. It looked like Mordor from The Lord of the Rings how thick the ranks of robots were. Lance couldn’t possibly defeat all of Sauron’s forces by himself.

 

“Blue, can you turn on the comms on your end?” She didn’t speak but he got her message. She couldn’t.

 

“Pidge, turn on the comms! Keith! Hunk! I need help! I repeat, I need help!”

…

“I haven’t heard from Lance in a while,” Hunks said into the open air. He and the others were just wrapping things up meeting at their rendezvous point and getting ready to join Allura and Conan on the ship.

 

“Sorry, my fault. He’s still in the time out corner,” Pidge said before a ‘click’ was heard over the comms. “Hey, Sir Talks-a-lot, can you hear me?”

 

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

 

“You think he’s asleep on the job?” Asked Keith who would not be surprised if it were true.

 

“Naw, we would be able to hear his snores. It sounds like a train with a bunch of walruses as cargo,” Hunk commented.

 

“Lance. Lance, answer me,” Shiro said and there was still nothing. Just the white noise of static and an empty feeling. Wait…

 

“Can anyone else feel him?” Shiro asked.

 

“Hmmm, no? Why is Lance out of Blue?”

 

“Maybe he’s back on the ship, left without us.”

 

“It would explain why he’s not answering us if his comm’s on,” Keith says but something pulled at Shiro. Call it gut instinct. In fact-

 

“Keith, what’s your instincts telling you about Lance?”

 

“That he’s a royal pain in my a-”

 

“Keith!”

 

“Yeah, yeah, on it.” Aboard the Red Lion, Keith really thought about the whole situation and let his ‘superb instincts’ take the lead on logic and something was really wrong with Lance.

 

“Allure said that-”

 

“Paladins, report!” came a worried shout from their comms.

 

“We’re all here,” Shiro spoke up, “Everyone except Lance. All is clear from our sides. What’s wrong?”

 

“Lance, what have you done?” Allura seemed to say without really thinking before telling the others, “Find Lance! The Blue Lion released an alert beacon not hundred tecks ago. That only happens if all power outlets are down.”

 

“So he isn’t on the ship?” Hunk questioned hopefully, not wanting to venture in some unknown territory with unknown force that took down the Blue Lion.

 

“Hunk! Not now!” shouted Allura before Shiro took over.

 

“Let’s find out what went wrong. Pidge, can you find the beacon?”

 

“On it,” came her immediate answer.

 

“Allura said there was no life on this planet!” Hunk shouted, his anxiety spiking.

 

“Organic life,” Keith said already figuring it out. “Did we skip the planetary power check?”

 

“You heard Conan before. The magnetized iron was screwing up all our scans on metal and electricity,” Hunk said.

 

“We fucking missed it then.”

 

“What?”

 

“Possibility of robots.” The dawning of what Lance could have run into settles in like a cold dose of venom in their blood.

 

“Shit!” Shiro shouts in an unleader-like way but he’s forgiven given the situation, “Pidge!”

 

“I got it! Sending coordinates now!” The coordinates of the Blue Lion pops up on everyone’s screen and they all move to get there. It didn’t take long and when they arrive they could see why the Blue Lion called for help.

 

The battlefield was covered in ice but up in the sky was robot operated battle ships, the sand dunes were dotted with attack towers, and the robot soldiers swarm the valley floor like a sea of ants pulsating over a dead carcass. Said carcass just happens to be Blue lying on her side with the light in her eyes ebbing away and enemy soldier crawling over her body and trying to rip her apart.

 

“Lance!” Hunk screamed before vaulting the Yellow Lion forward and barreling into the swarms of enemy below.

 

“Hunk! Don’t be reckless!” shouted Shiro but the only answer Hunk gave was a maniac scream as he beelined for Blue’s body. Shiro started to shout orders, “Kieth take to the sky and bring those battle ships down. Pidge, aim at those towers! Hunk! Hunk, let me get Lance! You take down those tanks!”

 

It must have been a new time of weaponry designed specifically for planetary take over cause monster tanks rising from ground hangers began to move out of their hiding spots, their laser cannons already aimed and ready to fire as even more robots filed out of the tanks open doors.

 

“Roger that!” shouted Pidge and Keith just gave an angry growl over the comms before following orders. Yellow let loose a cry into the sky, her maw throwing robot parts into the air. Hunk was reluctant to leave his self imposed mission but decided to follow orders for now. He began just plowing into the foot soldiers ranks, aiming directly for the tanks that looked like they can take a hit.

 

It was a good thing Hunk left Blue’s body up to Black to recover. Only Black was big enough to drag Blue to safety with the unhelp force of gravity. When Shiro made his way over to Lance’s lion he could only see how worse it looks up close. The robots really knew how to pull apart their own kind. Most of Blue’s armor was damaged, her inner wires raw, and the bright blue quintessience leaking like oil into parts they shouldn’t be.

 

“Okay Black, let’s get Blue to safety,” Shiro encouraged before piloting his lion to grab the Blue Lion with her jaw and flying away. The robots on Blue’s hull began falling off and the more stubborn one just held on until he was flying at Mach speed. He hated leaving his teammates in the battle field but the Blue Lion needed to be carted off to safety with Lance in tow.

 

“Allura, Conan, the Blue Lion is really banged up,” Shiro reported uselessly but it made him feel a bit better. Or no. Not him. It made Black feel better. Shiro can feel her worry over the other Lion’s form. She didn’t like to see Blue’s quintessience flowing out at all.

 

“Shiro! Get back down here! Why is there robot giants?!” called out Hunk.

 

“Don’t worry Paladin,” Conan said over the comms. “Blue will be safe here. Now gone on and win this battle!”

 

“Hey Conan,” Pidge said cheekily, “If we win, promise you’ll stay out f the kitchen for a year.”

 

“Don’t push your luck!”

 

Shiro turned the Black Lion around to rejoin the battle. There was so much going on that no one thought to check on Lance.

…

“How?! How in the universe can that happen?!” shouted Pidge within the castle hanger.

 

“Well it just...happened,” Keith shrugged his shoulders. They were talking about a particular wound between the Red Lion’s claws. The wound wasn’t serious but the odd placement of it should have been impossible. How the hell does a robot throwing a sword manage to get stuck in the foot of a flying space lion?!

 

“But the improbability of it! I mean just look the handle is pointing the blade down which makes it an ultra pain in the ass!”

“You’re being a pain in the ass,” Keith shot back before reaching to rub the back of his neck. “Imma go fix it now. Think Coran left his tool box down here?”

 

“Last I saw it was in the-”

 

“Holy cheese curd!” shouted Hunk. Hunk stood in front of the body of the Blue Lion. Alot of her outer armor was bent back, her innards glowing weakly and ebbing like a heartbeat. “Hey Shiro, how the hell you get Lance out of here?”

 

“Is he not out already?” Shiro asked in confusion.

 

“Hey Allura, Coran?” asked Hunk into his comm, a twist of concern churning his stomach. “Is Lance with you guys?”

 

“No, we haven’t seen him. Is he still in there?” Allura turned away from the Bridge’s comms to say to Coran, “Check the infirmary. Maybe he’s already down there.”

 

Hunk stared at the Blue Lion’s mouth trying to find something to tell him Lance was not in that cockpit still but-

 

“Screw it, I’m going in there!”

 

“Hunk you cn’t just-”

 

“Watch me!” Hunk pried his hands in between the Blue Lion’s jaws and tried to open her mouth but Blue was out of commission. She didn’t even budge.

 

“Little help here guys!” Keith and Shiro stepped forward and with the might of three Paladins [and some Galra tech] they managed to pry the Blue Lion’s jaws just big enough to shimmy their way through.

 

It was dark and cold inside and fear festered in Hunk’s heart.

 

“Lance?” he called out as he climbed up the ladder to the cockpit. When his eyes ajusted to the dim lighting, his heart stopped and the feral scream that ripped out of his throat was instinctual, unholy, and sent a rush of adrenaline to the Paladins around.

 

“What’s wrong?” Shiro snapped the order as he rushed up the ladder and saw for himself what was wrong.

 

The cockpit was dark except the emergency blue lighting. It was so dark. The cold blood that puddled on the floor was dark. The cold iron smell was dark. The cold silence that surrounded them was dark.

 

And there was Lance in the darkess sitting slumped in his chair. Shiro quietly moved around the black puddle of blood that still oozed in lazy drips down Lance’s fingers to have a closer look, his footsteps muted to not disturb the suffocating atmosphere.

 

Lance was sitting limp in his seat dead to the world. A few bruises and cuts littered his face but it was the paleness, the sheen of sweat, and the slack facial muscles of a dead man that really scared him so badly Shiro’s mind just...shut down. It shut down and he went on autopilot. What was a leader supposed to do now?

 

He pressed his fingers to Lance’s neck and suppressed the shiver down his spine how cold and clammy the skin felt. He waited for any tell tale signs before looking up at his crew.

 

“Guys.”

 

“That’s too much blood. That’s too much blood. That’s too much blood. That’s too much-” Hunk was repeating over and over again as panic took control of him.

 

“Shiro?” Keith called out in a tiny voice. He felt small again and he hated the feeling. Small and child-like watching as once again someone leave him. Possibly. But the possibility was too close. Too close. Way too close. “Shiro?”

 

“That’stoomuchbloodthat’stoomuchbloodthat’stoomuchbloodthat’stoomuch-”

 

“Hunk! Lance is still alive!” Shiro shouted to break his hysteria. Vomit climbed up Hunk’s throat but he knew that tone of voice. Shiro was about to give out orders. “Keith, you tell Coran what’s going on and get a healing pod ready. Hunk, come around and help me get him out of here!”

 

“Shiro-” Keith pleaded cause he wanted to help Lance. He really just wanted to touch him. Touch him once. Feel that pulse and know, and know, and know, and know-

 

“KEITH! Do it now!” barked Shiro and Keith scrambled to follow orders cause fear demanded it. Hunk edged closer and swallowed back his terror to get a good look at Lance.

 

“Where did he…? You know? I can’t see it.”

 

“Me neither. We got to find it,” Shiro muttered. Blood was dripped from Lance’s finger tips so Shiro took his arm gently and raised it up to try and find the wound. The sudden shift of gravity made blood spurt out of the open wound and Shiro hissed in sympathetic pain.

 

Shit. It was bad. A piece of shrapnel from...somewhere had lodged itself into Lance’s armpit and into the back of his chair. It was a flesh wound but just deep enough to cut the lymph nodes and a few veins. It was so close to the heart, Lance’ll be lucky to survive without a scratch to an artery. But Shiro wasn’t going to hope for the best now.

 

“The wound is over here,” Shiro pointed it out. Hunk wanted to look and see the damage but something told him that if he did he would have a revisitation with his lunch, dinner, and popcorn replacement.

 

“Shouldn’t we leave Lance’s wound alone? You know to stop the bleeding as much as we can?”

 

“That only works with a knife wound that was stabbed through. This is more like a slashing knife wound,” Shiro remarked upon closer look at Lance’s laceration.

 

“And you know this how exactly?”

 

“CSI Miami still plays on TV right?”

 

“Oh my God Shiro, you total nerd, not all of that stuff is-”

 

“Hunk,” Shiro snapped with a tone of voice that silenced armies, “Help me out here.”

 

“Right! Sorry it’s just…” Hunk trailed off as he gently straightened Lance’s legs and tried to see if there were any other wounds there. He hoped that there was none. His mind and heart couldn’t take the thought of Lance being mortally wounded as he is now.

 

“I know.”

 

They gently moved him out of the chair, Shiro’s left arm slowly saturating with blood and something in him screamed, ‘Faster. Faster. He doesn’t have much left.’

 

Getting him out of Blue was tricky but possible and when they were out Shiro said, “Pidge?”

 

“On Blue’s brain trying to wake her up. What’s wrong with-oh.” Pidge, from their perch on top of the Blue Lion’s head, couldn’t really see the fine details but they could see that Lance really shouldn’t be that pale, blood should not be that thick, and oh this should not be happening.

 

“Keep working on Blue, we'll get Lance to the in-”

 

“Coming through! Stretcher for the one in blue!” shouted Coran who speed through the hanger doors with a hovering medical stretcher behind him and Keith looking just as pale as Lance. Shirk and Hunk gentle put Lance down on the hover board and Coran ran back to the medical ward as fast as he could.

 

“Pidge, get Blue up and running!” Shirk ordered.

 

“Like hell I will!” Pidge jumped down and raced off with the others. In the medical ward Coran quickly moves around the room grabbing everything he needs. Stykrs, kopriss, tintle and thread, and-

 

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” he mutters lost in thought.

 

“If you need a transfusion, use me,” Keith offers because of course he does. He barely helped as it is and...there was so much blood. He might have not been freaking out as Hunk had but the image of that dark puddle and that vivid red that still stains Shiro’s hands and the chill that won't go away still clings to him like Lance’s ghost. But Lance was still alive. But Lance was still alive. He had to keep telling himself that. Lance was still alive.

 

“Do you have O negative blood, Keith?” Shiro checked.

 

“I wouldn’t be offering if it wasn’t,” Keith snapped cause the stress and tense was pliable.

 

“Alright, everyone out!” shouted Allura, “Coran needs to work without four agitated mother Snuitzers in here!”

 

“What about the blood transfusion? Lance lost so much blood he can’t possibly replenish it all himself without help even if he’s in the pod,” Shiro asked because that was his biggest worry.

 

“Blood transfusion? What that?”

 

“I believe on Earth they take blood within one person and put it in another,” Coran remarked using context clues.

 

“By the stars, that’s nearly barbaric! No Paladins, Alteans have a sort of blood substitute that’ll work just as well without...taking things out of places they don’t belong.”

 

“Hey! Earth’s not barbaric! Just really complicated.”

 

“Didn’t I say to get out?!” And with that the medic ward’s doors slammed on the Paladins faces but that didn’t make them leave. They stood, or sat, or paced, or all three outside in the hall waiting for the final verdict. Honestly, the odds of Lance surviving were pretty good. Very good in fact.

 

But Hunk kept panicking. Kept remembering that first moment of realization that there was so much blood Lance must have been murdered by some Galra slasher. Kept thinking about how cold his skin was. How pale in blue light, in white light, in darkness, how ghostly dead he seemed. How light Lance felt now that he lot so much weight.

 

Hunk began to recite his family’s recipes. It took his mind off thoughts of cleaning up the mess later.

 

Pidge was frozen solid. Numb. This wasn’t suppose to happen. It wasn’t! There is no possible way it could have gotten as bad as it did if...if…

 

If Pidge hadn’t cut off Lance’s comms with everyone else's. They could have lasted longer with Lance’s singing. What they should have done since the beginning was just lower his volume and now look. Look at what they done! They might as well have sentenced Lance to death!

 

Keith was in a fury. You would have never guessed it by the way he stood and leaned against the opposing wall with crossed arms over his chest and standing still but it was there simmering underneath his skin.

 

Pure, unbrittled rage. At everyone. At no one. At himself. Lance was in the Blue Lion for who knows how long alone bleeding out like some barbaric timer where the last drop of blood will be his death. There were so many people to care and went no one thought to check until the last minute. Did they make it? Did they notice too late? Fucking hell, it should have been the first thing on his mind when coming back in from battle. Who cares about a splinter in his Lion’s paw? Who cares about that when Lance could have been dead with none the wiser. Keith should have been wiser.

 

Shiro kept zoning out. It happens sometimes especially on the bad missions. And this was one of the bad ones.

 

Lance’s blood was already drying and cracking on his fingertips. The reek of dying blood cells was noxious at best and Shiro just kept...remembering. Remembering a time were red and purple were synonymous and how Galra blood reeked like something else entirely and how he got used to the smell of human blood mighty quickly.

 

The door opened and Coran stepped out. Everyone stood at attention ready to go see Lance.

 

“Wait a teck! I got news, news, and news. Which do you want to hear first?”

 

“Coran,” Pridge growled because patience may be a virtue but an unwanted one at the moment. “Move or you will suffer.”

 

“So news,” Coran began without pause, “Lance is still alive. Absolutely no complications closing the wound. He'll be in the healing pod for a day or so. Maybe even less! News: during surgery I sewed my gloved fingers together!” He raised his hand to show off the tangled mess his glove was. He didn't mean to show the blood stains still a bright red but it happened.

 

“On another note, Shiro, is it still true that all humans have on average 10 pints of blood?”

 

“Yes? Why is this-”

 

“By that measurement, I can say Lance lost about four pints of blood.” The room went silent at that information. No. It can’t be. But there was so much…

 

“Four pints, isn’t that a gallon? Sorry, I get confused with the whole change of metric whatever. There was alot more than just a gallon on Blue’s floor and-”

 

“Hunk,” Shiro interrupted kindly, “Even if four pints doesn’t seem like much. Lance is very lucky to be alive right now. He could have died if he lost another pint of blood”

 

“Oh,” Hunk said quietly understanding the sevarity of the measurements.

 

“And that brings me to my next bit of news. Allura and I did a scan to check his body for any hidden worries like hemorrhaging or broken bones and we came upon something.”

 

“What?” Coran looked them all in the eye trying to see something the Paladins weren’t sure of. But he must have seen what he wanted because he revealed a harsh truth to them.

 

“What do you know of brain damage caused by lack of oxygen?”

 

“Oh god.”


End file.
